Y2K and Nuclear Weapons 120
Deepak Saxena writes "The Nation(an ultra-leftist political news rag) has a very informative article on Y2K and the affect on nuclear power and weapons. Until I read this article, I was like "Y2K, so what?" This article really made me start thinking about the possibilities of what might happen. "
Who to nuke? (Score:1)
government won't just fire it's nukes at places in the States it
doesn't want anymore, and just say it was the Russians?
Ohh, the agony of choice...
I'd have to choose:
sheesh (Score:1)
Seriously though, you'd think they would've taken all the y2k nonsense into account when designing a friggin nuclear weapon..
linuxonline.org [linuxonline.org]
Translation: (Score:1)
A "small, finite risk" is scientist-speak for, "Theoretically, it's possible, but it ain't gonna happen."
Before you accuse someone of being an idiot... (Score:1)
Something none of the Cassini protestors seem to have noticed is that in space, all objects obey Newtonian meechanics perfectly (at typical sppeds of course.) Therefore, any malfunction in the probe's electronics, even a total breakdown of its onboard computer, will not alter its course by a millimeter. I suppose one of the thrusters could be permanently jammed in the ON position, but the odds that such a random occurrence would set the probe on a collision course with Earth are literally a trillion to one. We're talking astronomical distances here.
Ultra-what? (Score:1)
Yeah we're well on the way there, you ultra-left and ultra-right republicrats have been making it happen gradually now for quite awhile..
Certenly not everthing is correct. (Score:1)
Ultra-left? (Score:1)
The Nation is hardly an ultra-left wing magazine. It goes to show where politics are in American society when a liberal-leaning publication is considered to be "ultra-radical." Indeed, I am a former subscribed to The Nation and I never once saw any content I considered to be "ultra-radical."
Does this scare anyone else? (Score:1)
Living under the threat of nuclear war during my childhood was enough. I can't believe that I have to do it again because of something I love! I understand how the earlier computer systems needed the extra 2 bytes and everything but I am beginning to think that the cost of the RAM would have been much less.
The part that worried me the most is the quote at the end from Arthur C. Clarke. Does anyone remember what happened when war was concieved in the circuits of computers?
Better get all your living done before January 1, 2000
BTW I was being sarcastic (Score:1)
FYI I was being rather sarcastic in the last post about the get all your living done... I don't think it will be that bad... the prospect just scairs the hell out of me.
Ultra-what? (Score:1)
The Nation is a very old magazine with roots in various flavors of progressive politics (think Teddy Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette, Eugene V Debs - maybe you'll have to ask your great-grandparents); it isn't ultra-anything, except maybe ultra-American. The "ultra-left" is a major (and often demonized) part of American politics in this century. You may think you're being cool with your post, but your predictable response is actually pretty sheep-like.
When sufficient numbers of the ruling and chattering classes (and those who parrot them - like ewe, for instance) are FUD-ing about, demonizing, and marginalizing "welfare cheats", "evil liberals", "drug abusers", "feminazis", and "faggots" and such, we're not far removed from a certain society that, once upon a time, did the same thing to Jews, Gypsies, communists, gays, and dissenters of various stripes. The NSDAP and its leader were democratically elected; they eventually took away the voters' right to vote them out. They also took away the people's right to speak out. You might say "it can't happen here" (I'm assuming you live in the Ewe Ess of Ay), but that is a sadly mistaken assumption; it really can happen here, but only in a modern, spin-doctored, blow-dried, media-savvy (or media-owning), red-white-and-blue apple-pie fashion. Maybe we're well on the way there. Just like many Depression-era Germans, we won't know what hit us until well after our bodies are covered in welts and bruises.
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Ultra-what? (Score:1)
If you think that Republicans and Democrats, who are so hysterically fighting over a center-right sliver of the spectrum (the current pollster-defined "sweet spot"), are "ultra-left" and "ultra-right", then maybe ewe'd do well to look in the mirror in your search for culprits.
How much do I owe you for your little piece of lunchtime entertainment?
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Hey, cut this! (Score:1)
Because that's not how it works. The talking-head shows and op-ed people invite an Ann Coulter or a Barbara Olson into the mix so they can do the ridiculing. Meanwhile, no one seems to mention that Olson and her hubby are close friends of Ken Starr, and no one mentions the name of Richard Mellon Scaife, who has bankrolled many of the Get Clinton! projects (like the "Bubba killed Vince" melodrama, and the searches through every trailer park in Arkansas, amongst many other things). Frankly, I think Clinton is a GOP-wannabe, and a bad one at that; I'm the last person in the world to defend him. But if there isn't a "vast right-wing conspiracy", there's been something pretty much like it, going back to the days of Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich's late-70's prominence - it just didn't go into overdrive until they had a big fat saxophone-playing target to focus on. If you can't dig the idea of a "conspiracy", you're probably not old enough to remember the desperate aftermath of Reagan's failed 1976 campaign, or the name of his choice for a "running mate".
If you can't, for instance, explain who Father Coughlin was, or explain the trajectory of his national prominence, and how that relates to my earlier post (or to this one), then you're showing yourself to be someone who doesn't have a grasp of his own nation's history - you've already shown a script-kiddie ignorance of your own nation's politics. It's not like I'm asking you to dissect Indonesian natural-resources policy; it's your duty as a citizen to a) vote, and b) do a shitload of homework in preparation for that vote. This isn't something obscure, distant, or exotic, and it's really fucking important.
Come back once you've actually digested enough of that politics and history to be able to express your own thoughts (assuming you actually have any) in your own voice. Try to figure out why I, whose childhood heroes included Barry Goldwater and William F Buckley, would gladly piss on the shiny shoes of many of today's "conservatives". Don't waste bandwidth shitting out the pablum you've been fed.
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Certenly not everthing is correct. (Score:1)
Such toasters exist.
Consider this, why does a microwave oven need an IC in it? Years ago, when I had no money, and a dead microwave, I replaced the ICs and keypad with a pair of knife switches. It worked just fine.
As to why a chip with a date? Because they are general purpose off the shelf chips. Use the date if you need it, otherwise, dont. It's like my coffee maker. It has a timer so it can make the coffee just before I get up. If the power fails and the time gets unset, it won't brew coffee manually unless I set the clock to some time. It doesn't NEED to know the time to brew coffee, but it insists anyway. It may or may not have a date internally (if it does, it's wrong anyway).
You all just don't get it... (Score:1)
[c2.com]
this site.
--
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Silly Stuff (Score:1)
You forget that while a country may or may not have weapons of mass-destruction, they also need the delivery vehicle to bring that weapon to its enemy. Iraq does not have the missile technology to hit us or most anyplace in Europe.
But my other point is that even though I am trying to be optimistic, I am quite the survivalist and will be heading for the hills - and I am heading up the Y2K section of my consulting firm right now!!!!
That's pretty sad.. What's even sadder is that you'll end up convincing your friends and family of their impending Y2k-related doom and they'll do the same thing, tell their friends, etc.
If there does end up being a meltdown of the government or financial institutions, it's going to be due to attitudes [fastolfe.net] like yours and not any direct result of a Y2k-related bug.
Silly Stuff (Score:1)
The point I'm trying to make is that he can't nuke us. He doesn't have the delivery vehicles to launch a nuclear strike against anything US. Not all countries have the technology to make a military strike against any country in the world.
Rest assured... (Score:1)
Most embedded systems don't give a flip what day, hour, minute, or second it is, much less what year it is. The early warning systems don't care what day or year it is, they only care about things like the weather, signal strength, solar activity and so on.
The missile control systems don't care what time it is. All they care about is whether they have gotten a signal that says "Start your engines". After that signal is received, all they care about is fuel pressure, combustion chamber temperature, velocity, current position, throttle valve settings, etc.
The machines that regulate the operation of power plants don't care what time it is. They work on signals like line voltage and current, torque on the generator drive shaft, rpm of the turbine, inlet steam temperature and pressure and so forth. The systems at power plants that produce data for human consumption are not the ones that control the operation of the machinery. They are the loggers and display systems. The only "kind of time" that the controllers really care about is a delta. As in, "How long has it been since I turned that valve to the new setting?"
The only systems that are _really_ dependent on "human" calendar dates and times are logging and accounting systems that produce data that is in some way supposed to eventually be read, processed, and acted upon _by_humans_.
I imagine that the worst thing that is going to happen due to the 99-00 turnover is that some of us will be late in receiving some paperwork, ie. checks and bills; and believe me, no one is going to get their power cut off because some computer has decided that you have not paid your bill for 100 years. It takes a human hand to cut you off. No one is going to be evicted because they didn't get credited for their mortgage payment in time. Everyone in any kind of an accounting job is going to be very sensitive to this kind of stuff for several months before and after the rollover and no one wants to be sued for being to quick to follow the reccomendations of possibly faulty software.
*ultra*-leftist? (Score:1)
Try flag.blackened.net and/or www.zmag.org...
Y2K is underhyped. (Score:1)
Ignore the obviously sensationalist Time/Newsweek treatment of the subject ans listen to what the senate, NERC, et al have to say.
Y2K is hyped in much the same way that the Cuban missile crisis was hyped, except that today the media is far more irresponsible about how it reports things.
You could say in retrospect that all the people who built bomb shelters in their backyards were suckered into it by the media and people selling bomb shelters, but that doesn't mean the possibility of getting nuked wasn't there.
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As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
simply fascinating (Score:1)
IIRC, China's longest-range missile (the long march) is able to reach New Delhi, but not the US.
No ICBM's in China's arsenal to my knowledge.
Also, there has been speculation on the part of the West that China may one day develop some imperialistic designs on the rest of the world on account of it's size and population.
This has never materialized however. China is too consumed with China's business to care about conquering the US or anyone else.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
If I remember rightly ... (Score:1)
Wrong (Score:1)
Yes, a missile destroyed in mid-air is going to safely contain the plutonium. These things do not arm until they are quite a ways into their flight. They are designed to be VERY tough and hard to damage. After all, if they weren't the chances of a dangerous accident would be very high. The designers of these things are paranoid, and with good reason.
SDI had problems, many problems, but not these.
And of course everyone realised that terrorist nuclear bombs were a threat.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the people behind things like this are that stupid. Their overall priorities might not agree with yours and you might think their high-level decisions suck, but they're not dumb people.
simply fascinating (Score:1)
So, everyone backs down and says "we are taking
our systems offline over the new year's period."
So then you know that a nation will be unable to
strike back during those hours. What's to stop
someone (eg Saddam) attacking during this downtime?
even if the systems weren't *really* down, it would
still cause nuclear war.
Kinda scares me.
DocTee
China imperialistic tendencies (Score:1)
No Subject Given (Score:1)
I bet these contries would rather have the missiles flying away to some unknown destination than blowing up a military complex/harbour. Well it would be an incentive to get things fixed at least.
Hey, it cuts both ways. (Score:1)
NRC should be disbanded (Score:1)
with the smoke from coal power plants.
Like France, we could be 70% nuclear.
Our air would be cleaner and acid rain would
be reduced.
If you really want that, stop using your car and use buses, trains and cycles - or walk. Believe me, if everybody does that, it'll most likely have a larger impact. And if the powers that be really get a clue, they'll discover that currently our best energy source is to stop wasting energy - not building nuclear power plants. Or did you solve that nasty problem with the nuclear waste last night and nobody noticed? Harrisburg? Chernobyl? Sellafield?
Argathin
ultra-leftist news rag? (Score:1)
Y2K NUKES and Cassinni (Score:1)
1) there ain't enough nuclear material in Cassini for a bomb;
2) it isn't shaped for a bomb (and without that, even if there is enough material, it'll just melt or vaporize), and
3) it's encased in enough solid material that in the *extremely* unlikely event that it was so far off course that it hit the atmosphere and reentered (incredibly unlikely, Bruce Willis' POS Armaturkey aside), it would wind up as a lump on the bottom of the ocean, most likely (the planet *is* covered 70% with water, y'know).
mark
Certenly not everthing is correct. (Score:1)
ok Video players i understand , missles i understand, but wtf, who in the hell needs a dam IC in thier toaster, and going farther what kind of toaster needs a chip with a date. Last time i cleaned my Toaster, i saw one circut and it consisted of a pair of wiers from the wall, a thermostat and small switch and a heating coil. From that, where dose the Chip come in that needs to make sure its befor the y2K?
if you do have a toaster with a computer inside, i for one say you got ripped off cause you probly payed more that $5 for it, and at least mine will work after the Y2K
Kinda Sucks (Score:1)
The treaty was signed with the U.S.S.R. That country no longer exists, so the U.S. can build whatever it wants.
And no SDI... (Score:1)
It sucks when you can't defend yourself, doesn't it?
P.S. I find it hard to believe that the default action for a nuclear system after it crashes is to launch, as attracive it might possibly be for a nuclear power.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
The article wasn't written by anyone clueful. (Score:1)
The article didn't mention date rollover in nuclear weapon control systems specifically. Instead, it talked about their response to a wave of catastrophic computer crashes sweeping across the planet. This pretty much spelled out for me the knowledge level of the article's writers' on the subject.
They also mentioned nuclear power plants, stating that they would spontaneously melt down when this wave of devastation hit. Leaving aside the fact that it is extremely hard to make modern nuclear power plants melt down when you are actively trying to do so, the control systems that panic when anything like this happens aren't date-sensitive.
This article would probably make a neat movie, but IMO that's about it.
A little bit of information about nuclear reactors (Score:1)
Hah.
Power goes out in a typical US power plant. The elctromagnets holding the control rods over the reactor shut off. The reactor stops dead, and can't be restarted until the rods are pulled out again.
You _can_ turn the reactors _off_ if there's a problem. How do you think that they do maintainence on them?
GPS? (Score:1)
Um, the GPS satellites are way in the heck up in orbit, and don't give a flying leap what date computer systems down here think it is, because they have their own clocks on board (a GPS satellite's *job* is to transmit timing pulses, and that's it). Your GPS will still work, as long as you have batteries for it and nobody fires a box of nails up at the satellite.
More information on nuclear power plants. (Score:1)
So, drop the control rods in and shut down the reactor.
This assumes that the magnets holding the control rods up still have power, even though the cooling system doesn't.
If by some magic you can't drop the control rods, most reactors have a safety feature that lets you dump out the liquid that acts as a moderator. No more slow neutrons; the reactor stops dead.
If mischeivous Martians weld the control rods in place and similarly render all other safety mechanisms inoperative, preventing shutdown, then long before meltdown occurred your coolant pipes will burst. As the coolant is also the moderator, your reactor will stop dead. This makes one hell of a mess, but isn't catastrophic.
Meltdowns can only easily occur in reactors that use a moderator that can keep on moderating even when at the melting point of the fuel bundles. In Chernobyl, for instance, graphite rods were used to moderate the reactor. Graphite sublimates at about 4000 degrees C, and so remained in the reactor, slowing down neutrons, until the molten glop that was the reactor core spread out enough to no longer be able to sustain the reaction. Modern nuclear power plants use heavy water, ordinary water, or molten sodium as moderators. These have low boiling points (even sodium, IIRC).
Ever since the possibilty of meltdowns became known, the designers of nuclear power plants have made damned sure that the reactors will shut down, either by user action or by failure of moderator containment, long before meltdown can occur.
Y2K is over-hyped (Score:1)
I predict a lot of people are going to waste a lot of money preparing for Y2K. Anyone want to start a business? I'm sure a lot of people will capitalize on the frenzy that the news media has been creating.
You think that's hype ? (Score:1)
After all, you don't want your appliances to kill you on Jan 1st 2000
Vacum [sanyousa.com]
Washer/Dryer [sanyousa.com]
Refrigerator [sanyousa.com]
But my favorites are the "small appliances";
Can opener [sanyousa.com]
Ric e cooker [sanyousa.com]
Sal t&Pepper Mill [sanyousa.com]
And of course, who can do without women [sanyousa.com] and men's [sanyousa.com] Y2K compliant shavers
You think that's hype ? (Score:1)
After all, you don't want your appliances to kill you on Jan 1st 2000
Vacum [sanyousa.com]
Washer/Dryer [sanyousa.com]
Refrigerator [sanyousa.com]
But my favorites are the "small appliances";
Can opener [sanyousa.com]
Ric e cooker [sanyousa.com]
Sal t & Pepper Mill [sanyousa.com]
F ood chopper [sanyousa.com]
And of course, who can do without women [sanyousa.com] and men's [sanyousa.com] Y2K compliant shavers
simply fascinating (Score:1)
I don't give the guvmint a lot of credit in a lot of things, but one of the things left over from Reaganomics that isn't killing kids in the streets is a relatively efficient tracking system for nukes. Two in additions:
1) Not only that, but there's been talk [cnn.com] of a joint Russian-American tracking system for nukes on the fateful eve.
2) Saddam is many things, but I don't peg him as suicidal. Little Cold War lesson for ya: Know why there wasn't nuclear war? No benefit. One launches, and the other four Nuke Powers launch, the world's over, we ALL die. If Saddam launches, even if he launches at us, he'll still die, cuz England tends to like us nowadays. (nice of them to get over that whole colony revolt thing)
Not only that, but unless I'm mistaken, I doubt he could launch a loogie hard enough nowadays to hurt us.
you don't get it (Score:1)
Useless and annoying rabble rousing (Score:1)
Grab a clue.
The year 2000 is going to come into our lives with much fanfare, lots of partying, maybe some riots, but there will be no nuclear attacks, no worldwide breakdowns of society, no massive death.
(As to the nuclear attacks, I again point people to this CNN [cnn.com] article. We're safe, as far as the big messy booms go.)
How do I know all this? I don't. Granted. All these things could happen. Why do I think they won't?
Simply, "the world" is too complex for everything to come crashing down because of a stupid computer bug. Hardware's been replaced, and people don't remember. Isolated systems die, and don't take very much with them. Again, granted, I'm thinking about the US. Other countries may not have it so good, which could in turn shake up our economy more than it will be.
?More than it will be? Someone above said something about "I'm going to take all my money out of the banks because I don't trust them." That kind of idiocy is why our economy may be shaky. (remember "Sneakers [imdb.com]"?)
In short, keep aware, keep your ears open, don't jump to conclusions, and don't worry too much.
The world will still suck just as much a year from now, and a programming bug isn't going to have a whole lot to do with that.
You believe CNN? (Score:1)
And the mutual tracking system was on NPR (which I do trust) and a couple other news organizations as well.
Scary Stuff (Score:1)
But then again, Iraq's got nukes, and we ain't exactly friends with them..... THEY are the ones I am worried about, not the Russians or, hell, even the Chinese
But my other point is that even though I am trying to be optimistic, I am quite the survivalist and will be heading for the hills - and I am heading up the Y2K section of my consulting firm right now!!!!
Just goes to show that being educated about the problem doesn't make it less scary
- Cybergrrrrrl
Silly Stuff (Score:1)
Do we know this for a fact? We DO know that Saddam is a sick, twisted dictator that hates the U.S. And I'm sure he doesn't give a damn whether or not his mission critical systems (like missiles) are Y2K compliant, because he'd LOVE an excuse to nuke us. That's the only point I'm trying to make here.
"If there does end up being a meltdown of the government or financial institutions, it's going to be due to attitudes like yours and not any direct result of a Y2k-related bug."
Actually, it's the attitudes of the uneducated general public - feeding on the Y2K horror stories PLUS all of the well-publicized ramblings the religious cultists who think it's the end of the world anyway - that's making me stock up on pork and beans. I don't think the technology is gonna be what kicks our butts, and that's not really what scares me; what frightens me most is the chaos that will occur because of the human propensity to dumbly listen to these tales of Armageddon, and the ensuing riots that will happen when the power goes out. Which is very likely.
Nation != ultra-left-wing (Score:1)
And? What are YOU gonna do about it? (Score:1)
Oh well. All I plan to do is be ready for an extended power outage, and I will have a nice trip up to the remote mountains during the day, to miss those fun accidental nuclear strikes. I'll probably die anyways, but its an excuse to to out with some friends. ^_^
Ultra-left? (Score:1)
Y2k (Score:1)
Y2K (Score:1)
if (Radar_Blip) {
launch();
exit(1);
} else work_on_rc5des();
=)
Y2K NUKES and Cassinni (Score:1)
I thought it was a bad idea when I heard Cassinni had a Nuclear payload. I just heard a tidbit last night on the radio about it not being Y2K compliant. Does anyone know when it is supposed to slingshot by the earth again. Everybody sing "if you see the flash duck and cover"
lol
lazz the sane
Nation != ultra-left-wing (Score:1)
Can you guys read? (Score:1)
With all the references to VCR clocks and planes falling out of the sky, its painfully obvious that you guys did not read this thoroughly sourced article on problems with Y2K remediation.
In fact, I didn't see a single claim that a missle would explode as a result of a Y2K failure. The reporter actually quotes several sources that state that an accidental launch/detonation was highly unlikely.
The article highlights the potential problems with early warning and command/control functions. These potential threats have been +offically+ acknowledged by virtually every nuclear power.
Your arguments would be far more convincing, if you would actually try to refute the actual statements put forth by the various senators, defense ministers, oversight commitees, etc.
Y2K Hype (Score:1)
"Ignorance is the mother of all computer problems..........and Microsoft..."
I'll tell ya what i am gonna do bout it! (Score:1)
dont crap your pants! (Score:1)
"mean people suck"
You all just don't get it... (Score:1)
Y2K Idiocy (Score:1)
Or did you imagine you could buy stuff with money if the fewmets hit the windmill?
remember when: (Score:1)
Your VCR sucks (Score:1)